China Bolsters South Sudan UN Peace Mission With More Troops

(Bloomberg) -- Chinese troops arrived in South Sudan to reinforce a United Nations peacekeeping mission in the African nation trying to emerge from five crisis years.

A civil war pitting forces allied to former Vice President Riek Machar against those backing President Salva Kiir left 400,000 people dead, displaced four million others and slashed oil production, resulting in economic chaos in the nation with sub-Saharan Africa’s third-biggest crude reserves.

The 163 Chinese peacekeepers will gradually be deployed to Wau in the northwest, one of the areas that’s had the worst fighting, according to Francesca Mold, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Mission in South Sudan. The UN had 14,912 military personnel in South Sudan by the end of August, 1,054 of them from the Asian nation, Mold said in an emailed response to questions.

“The peacekeepers are being deployed as per China’s ongoing commitment to provide troops to serve with the UN Mission in South Sudan,” she said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Okech Francis in Juba at fokech@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Malingha at dmalingha@bloomberg.net, Helen Nyambura, Rene Vollgraaff

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